Marching Season 2013
by Tenuto07
Summary: I'm the pit section leader on the Hamilton drumline... Can I survive another year? Rated T for band.
1. Chapter 1

**Is everyone ready for another season? Bring it on! We're back with old characters, new ones, and hopefully, returning ones!**

** Marching Season 2013**

** Junior Year**

** Show: The Clue**

Many people who are reading this now have already heard my other story. It doesn't really matter if you read my last one or not, but if you did, then you'd probably understand the characters a little better, although I'm going to put out a character list. It won't have everyone on it; just the important people. Well… everyone is important… but the ones you'll read about a lot.

** -Flashback- (Because all good stories start with flashbacks!)**

I remember when I was ten, watching the T.V screen show the lit up field in the cold October night. I was watching my sister's very first show ever, entitled the 47 Ronin. It was Japanese based, but that was as much as I knew. I watched the band make shapes and I was shocked to know that actual people made those shapes. I watched the guard battle with their shining silver sabers (no alliteration intended). I remember the stupid comments I made, such as, "Who are those people on the stands waving their arms around?"

My sister answered, "Those are the drum majors. They act as our conductors." I was confused, and still was for a few years.

"Why doesn't your teacher just conduct? Why don't they just use a baton then?" (Man, I never realized how annoying I was, when I was ten)

"He's not allowed to be on the field with us and they just don't. No more questions, just watch the video," she said to shut me up. Even up to eighth grade, I still didn't get the concept of marching band. I remember even thinking to myself, _if I were a conductor like those people, I'd use a baton. I also don't want to ever become one of those drum people way in the back. _

That was six years ago. Now, here I am, a sixteen year old girl as pit section leader on drumline, also thinking about becoming a drum major. It's crazy to see how my life has changed.

-Flashback over-

**Drumline Rehearsal, 6/19/13**

My best friend, Jeremy, and I got out of his car as he switched his iPod from his car to his ear buds. "Sam is late!" he said as I turned around and saw her white Durango sitting out in the parking lot. I laughed.

"So, she's late 'cause she got here after us?" I asked him as I turned back towards him.

"Yup! I'm surprised Nick is here," he said. We parked right next to his familiar red truck. His windows were down. "And he even left his windows open."

"Well, that's Nick for you," I said as he handed me my drumsticks he borrowed yesterday and we got out of the car. I could hear Dr. Beat going off. As my other best friend, Sam, Jeremy, and me, walked into the building, we could see the flashing lights of the fire alarms. The siren itself wasn't going off, but the lights were flashing. The outer doors to the band room were locked, but Jeremy banged on the door with his fist. A few seconds later, Nick appeared snare drum and all. Nick was a senior this year, along with Sam and Jeremy. They're the oldest on the drumline. Nick and Jeremy have the most drumline experience.

"I knew it was you!" Nick exclaimed as he held the door open for us. The four of us walked in. The first person I saw was Jacob (or Jake, as most of us call him), a sophomore drummer. We don't know what instrument he's going to play yet, as our line is still experimenting. Our line is too small to hold auditions; we take what we can get. This is why I am pit section leader on drumline. It wasn't exactly my intention to be on drumline. I don't get it; being on drumline was a dream for me last year, but as I was made section leader for pit and asked to move to line, I didn't know what I wanted. It was quite hard for me to accept the position as their new bass 1 player.

The next person I saw was John O, our wonderful percussion instructor. John was nice, funny, and amazing at percussion. He actually attended Hamilton High School and was actually on the drumline around seven years ago. He decided to come back and help us. "Hey, John," Sam, Jeremy, and me greeted him. He smiled and waved to us. I walked up to Jake.

"Hey," I said as I watched him take out a snare.

"Hey, like the fire alarms? It's annoying, actually. They were very loud," he said. All I did was laugh. "What?"

"I just thought back, when I was in sixth grade, my best friend, Sarah, and I were walking to class. She was behind me and we walked through the door and when the alarm went off we both screamed and she shoved all of her books into my back," I laughed, thinking back of all the stupid things Sarah and I have been through together. She's not in band; in fact, she doesn't even attend Hamilton. There might be more of her later.

I got my drum out and set up. I talked to Jake for a little bit and John told us to set up. As we set up, at the spot I was standing, I could see the whole line, or rather, my band family. There was Marie A. on tenors, Jeremy, on tenors, Nick on his snare, then Jake, then me on bass 1, Sam on 2, and three and four were gone. Three is played by Sam B, (Lose a Sam, gain a Sam), and four is played by our ever-so-lovely, Ben Z. Marie, Ben, and Jake are all sophomores, my other friend, Brandon, (you'll hear about him in a minute), and I are both juniors. The rest are seniors, as mentioned above.

"So, here's the plan, we'll run all of our warm-ups for an hour, then we'll head outside for marching basics. Then, we'll run through Relay for Life stuff for the last hour," John said. We all agreed to it and worked on our warm-ups.

Brandon, my good friend and snare drummer, walked through the door. "Sorry, I had to bike here," he said as he went to get his snare. Brandon took _forever _to get ready, so we sat there and waited for him to tape his hands, and get his snare on. Finally, he got everything ready and we started playing.

Our show music is coming later in July, so we had absolutely nothing to work on instead of the actual show music. Running through warm-ups were simple. Eventually, we headed outside. "Take your drums with you and set them on the grass when you get out there," John instructed us.

"… And then they asked if I was taking the drums!" Nick was ranting randomly.

"What's going on?" I asked him.

"During Solo & Ensemble, some guy asked me if I was stealing the drums. I even had my drumline jacket on!" I laughed.

"See, that's what I don't get… Why would someone steal a drum? What use would they have with it, besides play it and/or sell it? It's not like you can even get far with these things anyway," I said.

"Right?!" Nick agreed with me, "yeah, soon I'm going to need an ID card or something!" I laughed some more.

"'Ah, yes, my name is Nick, I'm on the Hamilton Drumline. I'm a senior and I've been on the line for three years...'" I intimidated and we both laughed.

"Yeah, I'm taking these quint stands… I use them for my car…"

"Ha, 'yeah, I use these quint stands to smash car windows…'"

"That's a good one!" Nick and I laughed at our joke. We set our drums down and the line and I talked amongst ourselves until John appeared.

"Alright, marching basics! I'll be teaching this to everyone who doesn't know already, but since most of you guys do, it'll be a good refresher," he said. I was assuming he didn't know that I already knew how to march, but, whatever. John went through basics and had the snares and tenors in the front, and the basses in the back. We were walking on the parking space lines, right across from Nick and Jeremy's cars.

We started with the simple marking time, to the roll steps, to the relave, to the crab-stepping. When we got to the crab-stepping, John commented on how it could be better. "Don't crab-step like a duck," he said.

"Don't crab-step like a duck?" Nick echoed.

"Yes, let's consider that if ducks could crab-step, this is what they'd look like," John said as the line and I laughed.

"Or a duck stepping like a crab," Nick said and some of us laughed.

"Well, don't be that, either," John suggested and we continued with our lesson. "Alright," John said a little later, "let's do the Box of Death!"

"We're gonna hit some cars," Sam said, and Jake and I agreed.

"Uhh, no, we're not going to hit any cars," John said with a laugh in his voice.

"If anyone hits my car, I'll hit them back!" Nick said, as his car was in the front of the others.

"If anyone hits my car, I'll be extremely concerned about them," Jeremy said, as his car was parked between a black one and Nick's truck. We laughed and went on with it.

"Wait, _the _Box of Death?" Brandon asked. _The _Box of Death was eight counts forward, to the left, backwards, and finally, to the right.

"No, not _The _Box of Death. Just the off-brand one," John said. We laughed.

"Oh, so the generic one?" Nick asked. We laughed some more and John nodded his head.

"How about the Juice Box of Death?" Brandon asked. The Juice Box of Death was a little bit of an inside joke, as on Monday, we were practicing basics and I heard Nick wrong.

"No, no Juice Box of Death," John said with a laugh. He tapped us off and we practiced it for a little while.

"How about a stop sign?!" Jeremy suggested. I laughed, and said,

"Pentagon of Death!"

"Triangle of Death!" Jake suggested. I repeated it while laughing and Nick turned around.

"Triangle of Death… I like it! Great idea!"

"Actually, it was Jake's idea," I said before Jake could yell at him. Nick grinned and John tapped off again. As we walked to the right, Sam accidentally stepped on my foot and I tripped, but caught myself.

"No dying in the Box of Death," John said with a smile on his face. We all laughed (which, we do a lot). Jeremy turned around, smiled, and gave me a look.

"Emily…" he said. For those of you who don't know, I'm a master at tripping over things. I can trip while sitting (Don't ask). I looked at him and smiled.

"Don't worry, Jeremy, I got this!" I said with my hand up for reassurance.

"Good," he said and faced John again. After our fun with marching basics, John told us to take a break and then get our drums on. Brandon and I sat on the ground.

"It's hot," he complained.

"Well, the sun is only, you know, 3.4 billion degrees. Or is it 4 billion? I forget. No, wait, the sun is 3.4 billion light years away and six billion degrees," I said.

"Yeah, and it takes eight light minutes for the sun to reach the Earth. So, if the sun were to stop, we'd be dead in eight minutes," he said. Brandon is something of a genius. He knows something about everything, and I don't know how he does it. As for me, I learn all of my science stuff from Doctor Who.

"Guys, this could be the last eight minutes of your life," I said and Brandon and I laughed. We continued our conversation about space, until we somehow got onto the topic of our harnesses. My harness is too big for me, as I'm a very small person, so it makes marching 10x harder than it needs to be.

Once we finished our marching, John told us to go inside. We all headed inside and I set my drum down to get a drink. I walked back and we wanted to run things for Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a walk about finding a cure for Cancer. It's an all night event, and last year, we had an inside joke about Ben doing a fifteen hour cymbal solo. Too bad he's not here this year to do that. Ben is in Georgia I believe.

"What do you want to run through?" John asked us and Sam said,

"How about Lions Daze music?" John thought back to that event (Lions Daze is some event, I don't even know what it is honestly, something held in Sussex).

"Oh, _THAT _thing. It's not even a song, it's a thing!" John exclaimed as we all laughed. "That thing I wrote up in ten minutes… I suppose," he said. We ran through it, and finally John told us to do it out of memory. He took Nick's binder and set it on a stand. "Remember, it goes five bars of basses, then the shuffle, then _If You Like It, Then You Should Put A Ring On It_… Wow, I just said that as white as possible…" he said and we burst into laughter. "If you like it… then you should think about putting a ring on it!"

"That was very white," Nick agreed.

"Alright, one more time, five bars of basses, shuffle, then _If You Like It, Then You Should Think About Putting A Ring On It_, then the quarter notes," John said.

"That's not fair! You have my binder… that's doubling it up!" Nick exclaimed.

"Doubling it up, my butt," John said as we laughed and Nick tapped us in. The minute we got past the shuffle, everyone stopped, looked at each other, and burst into more laughter. We eventually moved onto the old cadence. The old cadence didn't even have a name. It was literally called "The Old Cadence." We have another cadence; it used to be called the middle-aged cadence, until we changed it to the snoop cadence.

The line and I ran through the old cadence, which ended very badly, until our time ran out and we packed up our drums for Relay for Life and headed outside. My dad pulled up and I loaded the drum in the car, and got into the front seat. I rolled down my window. "Bye," I said to Jeremy as he looked over to me.

"Bye, Emily!" he said as my dad drove away.

One day down, many more to go.

**Alright, how was that for the first chapter? I always seem to start these stories the rehearsal before Relay for Life. Weird. Anywho, please review and stay tuned for Friday!**

**~Tenuto07**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello!**

**It's been… months since I last updated. Well, here's for my explanation. This isn't a chapter, either. There might not be one for a while, but I'm pretty sure nobody reads this one XD**

Anyways, marching season this year has been hectic. I have an unfinished chapter still written. School started two weeks ago. I hate all of my classes (Yay for block scheduling! I have 83 minute classes!). So, back to marching season. I'm on drumline. I hate it as well. I don't like marching, my drum has given me multiple bruises, and I'm just so sick of it. You know, that middle-of-the-season breaking point? Yeah, I'm close to breaking.

I would have definitely written a lot more. I _do _think about this story all the time, but it's just that a few months ago, Sam and I got into an argument and I didn't want to write out my drama. And then band camp came around, and it's just too much sometimes. So, I'm sorry for not writing any. I'll probably do a competition or two. Definitely State.

Aside from the drama and all that crap, marching season is going fairly well. We've just recently added new visuals in. What's better than a "civilized" drumline tea party?

I'll be back eventually. Feel free to PM me, and if you'd like to get updates of what I'm up to, ask me for my Twitter name!

**Thanks for reading and dealing with that very useless update. I'll write again soon!**

**~Tenuto07 **


End file.
